


peas in a pod

by allapplesfall



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Season/Series 02, sometimes the amnesiac ladies you hit with your car become family what can i say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25869055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allapplesfall/pseuds/allapplesfall
Summary: Harlan stands on the other side of the counter, watching her.“Sorry for snapping,” she says. “My head just hurts pretty bad today. You know when the world gets too big and you can’t deal with it?”He looks at her.She knows he does. “Yeah. I’m…close. To that.”
Relationships: Harlan Cooper & Vanya Hargreeves, pre Vanya Hargreeves/Sissy
Comments: 25
Kudos: 232





	peas in a pod

**Author's Note:**

> I finished tua season 2 and wanted to write something soft about Vanya's early days at the farm! This is inspired by Vanya's "my headaches are better" line.

Vanya stands at the kitchen counter, cutting fruit for Harlan’s lunch. She keeps her breathing measured, even. Her body feels as fragile as a thin-shelled egg, so she holds it carefully, moving only her forearms and wrists as she cuts the stones out of plums and the core out of a pear. There’s a banana, but she’ll eat that herself later. Harlan can’t stand the texture of bananas as much as she can’t stand the texture of oatmeal.

Somewhere behind her, the carpet shushes. She flinches, knife jarring into the cutting board. She takes a deep breath. Then another. Sissy will be back soon from her farm responsibilities. She’ll be back so soon.

Light filters in from the window, splitting the counter into warm slashes. Normally, she likes the window. She stands at it, in those numb moments when her mind feels loose and fuzzy, letting the sun splash over her cheeks until fragments of thoughts wash back in like sea glass from the tide.

Now, though, the sun seems to gleam too harshly. The light drives needles into the cavities behind her eyes. 

Breathe. In, out. Sissy will be back soon. So soon.

She hears the rustle of record covers and sleeves. The needle clinks into place.

Music blares.

“Harlan–” she says, and it comes out strangled and sharp. She immediately clamps her mouth shut and presses her hands to her ears. She won’t speak to him that way. She doesn’t ever want to speak to him that way. But the noise drives deep into her ears, too loud, so loud, even though logically she figures it’s on its usual moderate volume, but god, fuck, it _hurts_.

The knife clatters to the counter.

The music switches off. After a few moments of fighting back tears, waiting for the drill bit of sound to stop burrowing through her skull, she straightens. Pries her eyes open. Looks around.

Harlan stands on the other side of the counter, watching her.

“Sorry for snapping,” she says. “My head just hurts pretty bad today. You know when the world gets too big and you can’t deal with it?”

He looks at her.

She knows he does. “Yeah. I’m…close. To that.”

They stand, for a moment. He gives her space to breathe. She does. In. Out. And again. She wants to rock back and forth on her heels to calm herself down, but the motion hurts too much. “I, uh, cut you some fruit,” she says, when talking’s a thing that can happen again. She means to add, _don’t worry, they’re the ones you like_ , but she can’t quite get the words out.

That’s okay. He can see it.

She gets out a small plate, ceramic with a rim of blue around the outside. She loads the fruit on top. She has to fight the urge to press the smooth white edge of the pear to her temple to cool her pounding head. Instead, she walks it over to his spot at the table, sets it down on the scuffed wood.

He follows her. He puts an hand on her arm. She feels his warm little-boy touch through her button-down shirt.

She looks at him.

He looks back, eyes knowing. She wants to punch his dad for every time he’s talked at Harlan like he couldn’t possibly understand, because how could anybody spend half an hour with this kid and think that?

Wow, she loves him. But she really hopes his mother comes back soon because she promised to watch him until she did, and her head really, _really_ hurts.

She nudges him towards the table. “Your mom can make you something else when she comes home.”

He tugs on her arm. For a second, she thinks he wants to play hide and seek or sit and listen to records, and she steels herself to tell him no, to tell him she understands but she can’t, not right now—but he doesn’t tug her towards the record player, or towards the door. He pulls her in the direction of her bedroom.

“Harlan, buddy, it’s lunch time. You gotta eat.”

He tugs again, more insistent.

“I’ll go lie down after,” she promises. “When your mom comes home.”

He yanks, now.

“I promised Sissy I’d watch you. I promised.”

When he doesn’t stop, doesn’t show any sign of stopping, she sighs. She manages a small quirk of a smile and lets him lead her to her room. 

She hasn’t decorated much. The walls are simple, cream-colored. The sheets are white. One quilt, squared in reds and purples, lies rumpled at the foot of the bed, and another, split in two and refashioned into curtains, dangles down the edges of the window. Sissy had worked with her darkest blanket, midnight-blue, so it could block out sunlight. Vanya has some of Harlan’s art around—a drawing on the nightstand, a painting on the sill. Beyond that, though, she doesn’t really have anything of her own she could put up.

She sits on the bed. “Harlan....”

He plops down on the floor, unclasping his sparrow from where he’d been holding it in his other hand. He lifts it and runs it an inch above the planks of the hardwood flooring, hopping from plank to plank in a soothing pattern.

Tears prick to her eyes again. He’s picked a quiet activity on the floor of her room, forgoing his favorite fruits, for _her_. For a nobody. For a nobody who fell into his life a month ago and changed up all his routines. She feels unbelievably grateful that talking isn’t their primary mode of communication, because this means more to her than she could ever find the words to say.

She considers rising to shut the curtains. Her stomach has started to churn, though, and kernels of pain won’t stop bursting in her head like the corn Sissy pops on the stove. Her ears ring a constant undertone. Standing seems like altogether too much effort. Carefully, she lowers herself to the mattress. She keeps her eyes on Harlan.

Lying down doesn’t fix everything, but it does help her take a metaphorical step back from the cliff that marks the division between _okay_ and _falling into one of her occasional overwhelmed-rocking-whimpering spells_. She breathes.

Time passes. She can’t tell how much—her room has no clock, even if she were in a fit state to sit up and look at it. Eventually, she hears the front door swing open, and the lighter footsteps of Sissy as she walks to set something down on the table.

“Vanya?” she calls. “Harlan?”

Vanya wants to smile and cry at the same time. Smile because Sissy’s back, and Sissy makes things better; cry because _ow_ that level of noise _hurts_. She longs to turn her head into the pillow. She doesn’t—what if Sissy thinks she hasn’t been watching Harlan?

Sissy’s footsteps draw nearer. She pushes open the door. “Oh,” she murmurs, all quiet-like. “Hey, you two. We doing alright?”

Vanya musters up a weak smile. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, I promise I’ve been keeping an eye on him.”

“You don’t have a thing to be sorry for,” Sissy soothes. She steps closer, into Vanya’s line of sight. Her shirtsleeves are rolled up to her elbows. The wind has mussed up her curls. “Headache?”

“Yeah,” she admits.

“Give me one minute, I’ll be right back. Just gonna get you a cold compress and some water, okay?”

“Oh, you don’t need to–”

“Vanya, we’ve been here before. Don’t hurt yourself worse by fussing. Gimme one minute.”

Vanya relaxes, letting her eyes slip closed. She hears the patter of Harlan’s feet as he follows his mom out into the living room. She hopes he eats.

Before long, the door creaks. Sissy sweeps back in. “Hey, sweetheart,” she says. A glass clinks against wood as she sets it on the bedside table. She moves to the other end of the bed, pulling closed the curtains. “There we go.” In the newly darkened room, she walks back to Vanya’s side. The mattress dips where she sits. She tentatively touches Vanya’s shoulder. “Can you roll over onto your back?”

Vanya does. She swallows hard as yellow spots fizz in the darkness behind her eyelids.

“Hey, now, you’re okay. Just gonna put this compress on, alright? Got some ice from the icebox, wrapped it up. It’ll be a bit chilly.”

Despite the warning, Vanya flinches when the damp towel presses against her forehead. “Ah–”

“Shh, shh.”

Gradually, she adjusts. Her tense muscles loosen again. “Thanks,” she murmurs. “I really appreciate it.”

Sissy uses the soft tone of voice she usually saves for Harlan. “Yeah? Well I appreciate you looking out for my boy.”

“He’s– he’s a really great kid.”

“He is. I think you and him…you're peas in a pod. And you know what would make him really happy?”

Vanya opens her eyes and squints at Sissy. “What?”

“If you let yourself relax. Let your body get to healing that pretty head of yours.”

Something about the word _pretty_ coming out of Sissy’s mouth makes warmth flush in Vanya’s chest. She probably doesn’t mean it the way Vanya wants her to, she talks that way all the time, but still. “He would?”

“Mm-hmm. You know him—he _hates_ to be down a hide and seek player.”

Through the pain in her head, Vanya manages a genuine smile. “We can’t have that.”

“No,” Sissy agrees. She lays the backs of her fingers against Vanya’s cheek. “Do you need anything else? Lunch?”

“Not hungry.”

“Alright. You let me know if you think of anything. You don’t have anything else to do today but feel better, you hear? Don’t even force yourself to come to dinner if you’re not up for it.”

“Okay.” Vanya’s eyes slip closed again.

“Good.” Sissy stands. She must be looking at her—she doesn’t move for a few seconds. Then her footsteps lead towards the door. Just as the hinges creak, Vanya speaks up again.

“Sissy?”

“Yeah, hon?”

“Thank you.”

“Of course.” Another pause. “We care about you, Vanya. And not just because I hit you with that car. I’m– We’re glad you’re here.” Gently, she pulls the door shut.

Vanya lies there for a minute, dizzy with feelings she can’t name (and also just plain old dizzy). She takes a couple deep breaths. She fumbles to undo the top buttons of her shirt. Finally, after minutes of willing the pain to fade, she sinks into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought <3
> 
> Note: I'm allistic, so please let me know if anything about the representations of autistic characters in this fic rubbed you the wrong way! I'll change it immediately.


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